CHRISTMAS DAY NEWS LINKS:

Holiday Traditions Old and New Center Around Giving

Posted byHoumanitarian

Shomial Ahmad, KUHF Public Radio
For more than 25 years, Randy celebrated Christmas at his house inside the loop with a dinner on Christmas Day. His family ate turkey, or honey-baked ham, or hamburgers. But this year, he and his wife are going to visit their daughter in France, and things will be a little different.

“One of the traditions is that they tend to celebrate more on Christmas Eve than on Christmas Day. And I’ve heard reference to oysters. I’m looking forward to see how that compares to oysters on the Gulf Coast.”

He says a lot of his friends are visiting children, who now live abroad. Margaret Jelinek Lewis still has her three children living with her in her Meyerland home. Lewis says this year, her family celebrated Chanukah a bit differently.

“We wanted to try to get the focus away from materialistic things, try to focus on what other people might need, try to focus on giving, as well as, recognizing that gifts don’t have to be expensive things from stores.”

So each night they did something different. The first night, they bought gifts and donated them. Another night they had an ice cream soda party: a gift for the whole family. The last night they made gifts for each other.

“And the sewing machine was going non-stop. My oldest child was in the kitchen. And David and I were trying to referee among them, and help make gifts.”

Lewis says this holiday was about the gift of time. It was about being together and not having anything else on the schedule.  Eastwood resident Mark Praigg looks forward to the holiday and getting to have that ‘gift of time’ with his family.
(Read and listen to the full story at KUHF Public Radio)

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